The Vascular Endothelial Cell: A Challenge for Tissue Engineering
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The inner lining of a blood vessel is composed of a monolayer of vascular endothelial cells (EC). Not only do vascular EC provide a non-thrombogenic interface with the flowing blood, but they also are a dynamic and critical participant in the biology of blood vessels. Much of what we know about vascular EC biology has been learned from cell culture experiments, and in this it has been and will continue to be important to engineer the cell culture environment so as to make it more physiologic. With the current knowledge existing of vascular EC function, efforts now are being directed towards the tissue engineering of blood vessel substitutes. In this an important question is how will one provide for the inner endothelial lining. In addressing this, there are both advantages and disadvantages in the use autologous EC, allogeneic EC, or stem cell-derived EC. Although initial clinical results are being achieved with autologous EC, if one is to have off-the-shelf availability, then in the future one will need to move to the use of non-autologous EC. This will require overcoming the immunological barrier.